Metered Access

Crain's Detroit Business is a metered site. Print and digital subscribers have unlimited access to stories, but registered users are limited to eight stories every 30 days. After viewing three metered stories, you'll be asked to register or log in. After eight more stories in 30 days, you'll be asked to subscribe.

3 found guilty in $70 million scheme to defraud Medicare, Medicaid

A pharmacist, a doctor and a patient recruiter all walked into a federal courtroom Friday morning and learned they could soon move on to prison, after a jury convicted the trio of multiple felonies in a far-flung $70 million Medicare and Medicaid fraud scheme.

Jurors took about five days in deliberation to return guilty verdicts against Carl Fowler of West Bloomfield, Michael Thoran of Detroit and Mukesh Khunt of Toronto of a combined 12 charges after they stood trial together before U.S. District Judge Arthur Tarnow.

All three were part of a larger alleged conspiracy involving a network of more than 20 pharmacies and 39 defendants including various medical doctors in Southeast Michigan accused of billing $70.9 million to the federal Medicare and Medicaid programs, under a 2011 indictment.

Fowler and Thoran were each convicted Friday on all three charges they faced in court: conspiracy to commit health care fraud, conspiracy to distribute controlled substances and conspiracy to pay or receive health care kickbacks.

Jurors convicted Khunt on six counts — conspiracy to commit health care fraud, conspiracy to distribute controlled substances, and two counts each of health care fraud and distributing controlled substances — but could not agree on a seventh count involving kickback payments.

Federal prosecutors contend Khunt, a pharmacist, billed Medicare, Medicaid and private insurers for expensive medications he never dispensed and for drugs with street value like Vicodin that were resold by marketers on the street market. Thoran was accused of acting as a patient recruiter in the scheme, and Fowler was a physician who allegedly received bribes and kickbacks from conspiracy ringleader Babubhai Patel to refer prescriptions.

Patel, who was convicted at a separate 2012 trial in the same case, is serving 17 years in federal prison.